


"Friends"

by sydcanfixit



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Minor Violence, Retelling, Sad Ending, Short One Shot, Swearing, This is angsty as fuck, stan mentions his bar mitzvah a bit, stan takes a bath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 19:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12394719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sydcanfixit/pseuds/sydcanfixit
Summary: So, he wrapped his face. Ignored the scars that he knew would haunt him for life. Went to sleepovers and birthday parties and was there at the Barrens on the day before Bev moved away. He let them cut his hand. He promised to come back and he left.---a stan-centric angsty ficlet.





	"Friends"

Stan had figured out a long time ago that his friends weren’t there for him. 

He was only part of the Losers Club because of shared experience. He was Jewish and Henry Bowers hated him, and Bowers found a reason to hate the other six kids, too. The Losers began to notice him after the first time Bowers rubbed Stan's face in the snow. Stan's face was all red and raw that day -- the day they invited him to hang out at the Barrens.

For a long time, though, Stan didn’t care. All that mattered was that he had people to sit with at lunch and do stupid shit with over the summer. They had even made him feel like he was a part of things.

But then, Stan became a man. He invited all them to his Bar Mitzvah. They all RSVP’ed and Stan remembered how anxious he was; he even cried. In the end, he had no reason to be. Only one of them actually showed when the date came around -- it was fucking Richie, of course it was fucking Richie.

Richie was surprising respectful, but the teasing was almost relentless. At any given opportunity, Richie was poking Stan in the ribs and reminding him how he read the Torah upside down. Or how he had to get circumcised and how his voice was cracking the entire time. In Richie's words, his hair "looked funny" all slicked back. And, sure, it was all in good fun for awhile but soon it felt like that was the only thing Richie ever said anymore. Stupid jokes. Stupid jokes that embarrassed him. 

Stan got over it. His friends all had solid excuses. It wasn't their fault their mother locked them in the house or they were mourning their dead brother. He scolded himself for being so insensitive about their absence.

Everything was okay for awhile. The Losers didn’t hang out for awhile. Stan played more baseball, re-arranged his bedroom 500 times, and sat on the bench in Memorial Park. He found some new birds there.

But, then, the monster came back. The disfigured woman from the painting in his dad's office came back to life. Bill brought them all together again. Stan didn’t want to be there. He wanted to forget about the painting, the clown, and the missing children... but he knew that they would never let him. He _knew_ they were going to drag him along again. Because that’s what friends do, right?

They all went into the well-house. The sewers. Stan knew they would , but he had always hoped that he would get a free pass (along with Eddie) and serve as the guard. He looked at Eddie when Bill started climbing down into the well. Eddie didn't notice the look Stan had given him, and followed Bill down the rope. 

It was as horrifying down there as he had thought. Mike, the person on watch upstairs, had almost died twice now, and he was the one with the gun. Stan was more nervous than he was the night before his Bar Mitzvah -- which was saying something. At least he was clean, then. With every step in the dark, wet pipes, Stan felt more and more nauseous. He thought he was about to hit his breaking point.

When he turned around, though, his friends had left him. They weren’t answering his calls or frantic flickering of his flashlight. They didn’t hear him scream or notice he was gone. Stan knew this would happen. They didn’t even care. He was going to die at the hands of a thing that doesn’t _even_ exist and his “friends” wouldn’t pay any mind. They would miss his funeral, if he even got one.

And when the lady from his dad's office appeared -- which he knew would happen -- Stan screamed, cried, and gagged... but he wasn’t surprised. When it dug its teeth rows and rows of teeth into his jaw, it hurt more than anything he’d ever felt before... but he still wasn’t shocked. Because from the second he had met the Losers Club, he knew they would leave him. 

The Losers pulled the monster off Stan. He didn't know what to do after that, so he went with his gut and started to scream at them. He told them that they left him to die. That they weren’t real friends. That they didn't care about him. And they had the fucking nerve to cry. They whimpered and cried and Stan felt his blood turn to lead. 

Stan still helped to kill the damned demon. He bashed its head in with a pipe and protected the people who didn’t care about him. He watched Pennywise the Dancing Clown dissolve and fall into a well. He helped the floating corpses back down. He did everything that he had promised to do and never brought up the subject again.

So, he wrapped his face. Ignored the scars that he knew would haunt him for life. Went to sleepovers and birthday parties and the was there at the Barrens on the day before Bev moved away. He let them cut his hand. He promised to come back and he left. He left them and he never met up with the entire Lucky Seven ever again. 

Twenty seven years passed. Stan, the one who had to go down into Derry’s disgusting sewers, got a phone call from an old friend. Mike Hanlon's voice was speaking to him over the telephone.

_"Don't forget your promise, Stan," Mike said._

He hadn’t forgotten. He knew everyone else had but Stan never did. The scars reminded him every morning. He saw the woman from his dad's office every time he washed his hands. He remembered that the trash mouth was the only one at his Bar Mitzvah. He remembered that his children “friends” left him to die down there.

He excused himself from his wife's company and went upstairs. Stan went into the bathroom.

There were a lot of thoughts occupying Stanley Uris’ head when he put the drain stopper in the tub. But, when he started filling it up with water, he could only think of the sewers. And when Stan grabbed the razors from the cabinet, he thought of his Bar Mitzvah and Richie Tozier's jokes.

Stanley Uris took his bath.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!! love getting comments and if you have any suggestions lmk


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